Upplevelser av svensk film : en kartläggning av genrer inom svensk film under åren 1985–2000

Sammanfattning: UPPLEVELSER AV SVENSK FILM offers a broad understanding of Swedish cinema during the years between 1985 and 2000. The dissertation focuses on those Swedish films that have been given a wide distribution, i.e. films that in many cases can be considered popular films. (Films that have only obtained a marginal position in the cinemas have not been included.) The films studied attract an average of 2,5 million viewers each year (about 15 percent of the total cinema audience), and to a high degree they contribute to the comparatively strong position Swedish film has in its domestic market. Many of the films share characteristic features. In fact, most of them belong to, or are related to, established genres and cycles. For this reason, genre theory is presented in some detail and it is later used to analyse the various groups of films that can be distinguished. In the analysis and presentation of these groups particular emphasis has been put on narration and narratives, as well as on the different moods and worlds that are used. The groups discussed are crime films, crime comedies, relationship films (including both relationship comedies and dramas) recognition comedies, music comedies, teenage films, children’s films and history films. The most important aim of this study has been to offer a good account of these groups, and for that reason these chapters make up the largest part of the dissertation. Nevertheless, a few conclusions about genres as a system and as part of the cinema institution are made in the last chapter. A general pattern that applies both to the genre system and to the films within each genre is that films that are facile and playful, that distance themselves from everyday life and serious matters, and that provide smooth solutions to difficult situations attract more viewers than films for which the opposite applies. Thus, within the Swedish genre system there is a strong preference for comedies of various kinds. Although comedies maintain a good position among the genres, they become less attractive after the first years of the 1990s, when Sweden entered a period of economic hardships. The opposite is the case with crime films, whose importance increased during the 1990s. The popularity of some other genres, such as teenage films and children’s films, remain more or less on the same level throughout the period. The same is true for relationship dramas and reality-based history films. These two groups of films have had difficulties attracting large audiences, without doubt because of their relatively serious nature. Their marginalised position underlines the dominance of rather light entertainment in the Swedish cinema institution during the period studied.